


Harder to Fall

by captainamergirl



Category: General Hospital
Genre: A twist in my story, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, angst oh the angst, jasam - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-07-09 05:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19882570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: A harrowing twist of fate puts Jason and Sam on a collision course with destiny. AU.





	1. Prologue: The Letter

**Author's Note:**

> After Lucky dumps Sam for her lies, Sam goes to Jake’s and attempts to get rip-roaring drunk. Jason is there too and eventually they find themselves in too close quarters where they share a night of unexpected passion. The next morning, they agree never to speak of it again. Sam soon learns she is pregnant from that night and sets out to tell Jason when fate interrupts her. She decides to leave town and raise her child on her own but Lucky follows her, and even after she reveals that she is pregnant with Jason’s baby, he told her he still wanted her back in his life. Later he proposed to her and convinced her to let him help raise her unborn child. They were married and shortly later, Sam’s son Noah Nicolo is born. She and Lucky raise him together as best as they can despite Sam’s secret realization that Jason really was her soulmate after all.
> 
> Skipping ahead four years, Sam has just learned that Lucky has died in a car accident. A letter he wrote her right before he died, convinces her she needs Noah to have Jason in his life; that her son needs his father. So she heads back to PC realizing that not only will she be labeled a hypocrite, she could possibly lose her son for good. How will Jason react to the news of learning he has a son he has never met before and can he forgive Sam for her duplicity and possibly make a new future together with her and their son after all these years?
> 
> Note: Jason knows Sam has a son but of course has no idea Noah is really his. Jason is still involved with Liz but they are not happy together in the least. Jason has been raising Jake Martin and Cameron with Liz for a few years now once he came to be convinced that he could likely protect them from his lifestyle.

**Prologue: The Letter**   
  
_**Denver, Colorado  
December 16, 2013**_  
  
Samantha McCall-Spencer was currently unaware that her black, three inch suede heels were sinking deeply into the closely cropped, frost-tipped grass at St. Ignatius’s cemetery as she watched the coffin with her husband inside being slowly lowered into the ground. The sedative Dr. Rice had given her that morning did not allow her to feel much of anything at that moment. She was completely numb. She was broken; she was weary; she was devastated, but she wasn’t going to break down here in front of everyone. She knew in the back of her mind that those emotions would swell up inside of her soon enough and she didn’t want witnesses to her outbursts of grief and distress.   
  
She could still not wrap her mind around the idea that Lucky – Her Lucky - her sweet, caring best friend, cherished confidant, and most loyal protector was really gone.  
  
They had been happy together. As happy as any couple could be anyway. Lucky had treated Sam better than anyone else ever had and she had trusted him above all others and loved the way that he stood strong beside her and never let her forget for a second that he loved her and wanted her to be happy. Lucky had always made an effort to make Sam feel both content and appreciated and had showered his affection on her and the little boy who wasn’t even his biologically.   
  
As Sam watched Lucky’s father and siblings throwing flowers over Lucky’s open grave, she began to feel a stirring of raw emotion and the physical sensation of being unable to catch her breath. A knot of tension and unshed tears had planted itself in the middle of her throat. She would be in the midst of a full-blown panic attack in minutes. In the last week since Lucky had gone over the side of that snowy mountain, she had already had three panic attacks. That was not her way. Sam never liked to be vulnerable and never allowed herself to panic but this was one of the hardest hands she had ever been dealt in her life. Her dreams of having a consistent life partner to be with her always, not to mention having her dearest friend around her, and having a father for her son, had been shattered. She was broken. She was filled with anger and unimaginable pain.   
  
Sam could think of another time her grief and sorrow had been this acute and that memory still haunted her even now. She pictured the blue eyes of the man who had unknowingly given her the gift of her son, but had that one day sat across from her at Pentonville, looking emotionlessly at her, everyone thinking he was condemned, and the way he had refused to reach out to her; to show her he had ever cared about her at all. He had been the true definition of “stone cold”. All she had been able to do that day was walk out and say goodbye to the most cherished illusion of her life.   
  
Mixed feelings about that man and her newly deceased husband began twisting themselves around in her mind and heart, and she felt herself begin to crumple to the ground. A pair of strong, steadying hands reached out to catch her on the way down and she looked up into the coal-colored eyes of her cousin Nikolas – and own Lucky’s brother - which were as misty as her own.   
  
“Its okay, Sam,” he said. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll make sure of that.” He gently wrapped his arm around her waist and led her away from the eyes of the funeral goers, some of which were there for no other reason than to satisfy their curiosity about the way Sam was going to act out.  
  
“Lucky … Lucky,” she moaned into Nikolas’s shoulder. “How could this happen to him? He was such an amazing, wonderful person and … Goddamn the son of a bitch for going and getting himself killed!” Sam spat out angrily.   
  
Nikolas held her tighter as she sobbed. “He loved you, Sam. He really loved you. You healed his heart when he needed it most; you made him happy. I’m sure he’s looking down on you right now thinking that he doesn’t want you to let this grief take over you forever.”  
  
Sam shook he head. “He’s probably thinking ‘why did I ever bother with her at all’?”  
  
Nikolas looked at her sternly. “I sincerely doubt that. He loved you with all of his heart.”  
  
Sam looked up as footsteps approached. Lucky’s father, Luke Spencer, walked over and without a word gently took Sam into his arms. She cried against his shoulder as he cried into her hair for a long time.   
  
Finally Luke pulled away. “My cowboy,” Luke murmured. “My poor cowboy.”  
  
“How are we supposed to go on without him?” Sam asked.  
  
Luke cupped Sam’s chin gently. “I don’t know, but we’ll do it together. You’ve been a Spencer since the day you married my son and you will be one forever. You and my little cowboy grandson will always have a place with us.”  
  
“Thank you,” Sam murmured softly, becoming even more somber as she pictured how she had tried to explain Lucky’s passing to Noah the night before. He had not understood much of what she told him, of course. He was too young and too innocent. He was very sheltered and his life had not yet been tainted by the real world. He didn’t yet understand the sting of sadness and pain (other than scraping his knee when he fell on the sidewalk when he was chasing his favorite baseball) that the death of a love one brought. He didn’t understand and could not yet contemplate that he would never see his daddy again. At least not on this earth and Sam wasn’t sure there was a heaven, no matter what she had tried to tell Noah to comfort him.  
  
_“Your daddy is gone, Noah, but he’s still watching you from up there.” She said, pointing upwards to the blue ceiling above their heads.  
  
“He’s in the attic?” Noah asked, wrinkling his little sandy-colored eyebrows and watching her closely with those intent blue eyes of his. “You told me never to go in there because a mean old dirty rat might try to bite me.”  
  
“No, Noah, he’s not in the attic. He’s way above that place. He’s all the way up in heaven.”  
  
Noah stared at her wide-eyed. “With God and Jesus?”  
  
Sam nodded uncertainly. She was not sure where Noah had learned about God and Jesus being that Sam was anything but religious and Lucky didn’t say much about the heavenly world above either. Noah was just one of those smart little kids. She had learned that a long time ago and it had always made her feel proud of her son. She loved having an intelligent child who knew his ABC’s way before he entered pre-school. Sam certainly had never felt intelligent herself. She must not have been to have made all of the pathetic choices she had in her lifetime.  
  
“Yes, with them,” Sam said, feeling like she may be lying to her child, but not knowing what else to say.  
  
“When will we see him again then?” Noah asked, intently picking at a ketchup stain on his tee-shirt.  
  
“Not for a long time unfortunately,” Sam replied.  
  
“How long?”  
  
“Long enough,” she had whispered.  
  
“He will come back soon, Mommy. I just know it,” the little boy said confidently as he crawled into Sam’s lap and wrapped his arms around her neck. “Don’t worry, mommy. Daddy won’t forget us.”  
  
Sam wished Noah was right on both counts because she had missed her husband and best friend more in that moment than she would have ever thought she possibly could._  
  
XoXoXo   
  
Sam had insisted on staying out by Lucky’s grave well into the night. She couldn’t manage to pull herself together and she didn’t want Noah to see her fall apart in front of him. Now he was in bed for the night and as much as she wanted to go into his room and hold him and just huddle to his little warm body as she cried, she knew she couldn’t use him as an emotional crutch. He was a child; not an adult. She needed to be strong for the both of them.  
  
Nikolas walked Sam into the house and forced her to sit down on the small, brown sofa as he paid the babysitter, Rhonda. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Spencer,” she said.   
  
“Thanks, Rhonda,” Sam said, offering her a weak attempt at a grateful smile.  
  
“Well...bye,” Rhonda said and hurried out of the house.  
  
“I’ll make you some tea, Sam,” Nikolas said. She was about to say “no, thank you” but he held up a hand to stop her. “You need something to relax you. I saw you had some herbal with no caffeine so I’ll fix you some. It will make you feel better.”  
  
“What I really want is a stiff drink,” Sam said.  
  
Nikolas shook his head. “I think that’s the last thing you need, Sam,” he said, kissing her on the forehead and walking into the adjoining kitchen.  
  
There was suddenly a knock at the door and it made her jump; she had been so deeply engrossed in her thoughts. It was late – almost ten P.M. – and she wondered who it could be. She considered ignoring it but they kept pounding.  
  
Sam sighed and climbed to her feet as she doffed her thick wool-lined jacket on the sofa. She went to the door and peeked out the little window beside it. Two, uniformed police officers she recognized as Lucky’s friends, Bart and Chris, stood on the other side.  
  
Slowly, she pulled open the door. “Hello, Mrs. Spencer,” Bart said. “We’re sorry to bother you so late but we just received something from the crew that pulled Lucky’s … body … out of the wreckage. They found this in his jacket pocket –“ he held out a crumpled, folded sheet of paper to her – “and just turned it over to us now for whatever reason. We thought you should have it right away.”  
  
Sam took the paper from his hand and immediately recognized Lucky’s small, familiar scrawl. “He wrote – he wrote me a note?” she asked, clasping it to her breast.  
  
“Yes,” Chris answered. “We didn’t read it once we saw your name on the front of it,” he said. Sensing she wanted to be alone with her husband’s last words, they bid her well wishes and departed down the steps.  
  
Sam slowly walked towards the frost covered porch swing and sat down on it, not caring about the chill that hit her backside. Her eyes filmed with fresh tears as she read Lucky’s last words to her.  
  
_Dearest Sam,_  
  
_In a few hours, I am sure they will find me, but I know I will already be gone by then. It’s cold down here, but don’t think I’m suffering because I’m not. Your last words to me before I left the house today (“I love you, Lucky; you will never know how much I appreciate you”) are keeping me warm enough that I can last a little while longer. There are so many things I want to say but unfortunately this is all the paper I could find. I just want to say that I will always love you – wherever I go after here, just know that. You changed my life for the better; you saved me from total destruction. We built a great life together and I thank you for your loyalty for the past four years. I thank you for bringing Noah into my life. He has made all the difference although I did also miss Jake and Cameron more than words could say (and I hope you will one day tell them so)._  
  
_About Noah, he will need a father now that I’m gone, Sam. He needs his REAL father. I may not like his true father but I know he will do right by Noah this time. I have to believe that or I couldn’t die in peace. Give Noah the gift of his true heritage._  
  
_Don’t be afraid to be happy after I’m gone, Sam. Actually do me a favor and let yourself be. I will be smiling down on you wherever I am. I am so proud of you and love you with all my heart._  
  
_Always,_  
 _Lucky_  
  
Sam read over the note once again through near-blinding tears and then tucked it into her pocket and sat staring at the falling snow just beyond the porch.


	2. Home Again

**Chapter 1: Home Again**   
  
**_Two days until Christmas …_ **   
  
“Are we there yet, Mommy?” Noah asked, peering out the window from where he was perched in the backseat of the truck Sam had rented to move all of their possessions. The house back in Denver was now up for sale and she hoped that some nice family would fill its walls with love and laughter the way it had been filled when Lucky was still alive.   
  
Tears misted her eyes but she fought to hold them back. She refused to come undone in front of her son. He deserved a mother who could be strong; who could hold her emotions in check – especially in front of a vulnerable four-year-old.   
  
“Almost,” Sam replied as she flipped on her turn single and pulled into the left lane to exit the freeway. They would be in Port Charles in no time.    
  
Her stomach felt topsy-turvy at the idea. She had no idea what she was going to do; what she was supposed to do in a situation like this one. How did one approach their old lover and spring the news on them that they had a son they never knew about? Of course Jason knew of Noah’s existence but he had no idea Noah was his. Sam didn't know how he would react and she feared his reaction as she had never feared anything before. She was afraid not for herself, but for her son. Noah needed her, as broken and fragile as she was, and he was the only mother she knew. Just as Lucky was the only father he had known. If Jason decided to go for custody, Sam knew she didn’t have a legal leg to stand on though she was sure her mother would fight tooth and nail for her.   
  
Sam pulled the truck down a quiet, wood-lined path and sighed as she parked in front of the lake house. The lake house with far too many unpleasant memories attached to it. Flashbacks of the night she had bedded down in Ric Lansing’s arms tortured her mind as she remembered the way that one horrible decision (just one of many) had shaped the rest of her life. It had led her to do things she never imagined doing – like keeping the paternity of her son a secret for over four years …   
  
She sighed and hopped out of the truck, landing perfectly on her feet like a cat. She walked around to the back of the truck and opened the door. “Ready to see Alexis?” Sam asked her son, as she unfastened the straps on his car seat and pulled him to her. She clutched her to him for a moment with a little smile on her face until he started wriggling to get away.   
  
“Mommy, put me down,” he said and she put him down on his feet. He scurried away and up the front porch stairs, excitedly shrieking,  _"Grandma, Grandma, open the door!”_   
  
Sam grinned in spite of herself. When Alexis had hit her 50’s, she had respectfully requested that any and all of her children’s offspring refer to her by her first name as she had been having a bit of a mid-life crisis. Fortunately, she had gotten her head right although she still preferred to be called “Alexis”. Sam didn’t feel like correcting Noah right now though. He was excited to see the grandmother he hadn’t seen since the summertime when Alexis brought Kristina, Molly, and her husband to visit them in Denver.   
  
The screen door banged open and Sam smiled as she watched Noah Drake (aka Noah Sr.), her son’s namesake, sweep her little boy up into his arms and give him a big hug. “How’s my favorite big guy?” He asked and snuggled Noah close. Noah reciprocated with a large hug.   
  
“Fine and candy,” Noah said.    
  
Noah Sr. looked over at Sam. “Sam, I had no idea you were coming.”   
  
Sam nodded, looking down at the tips of her black boots. “Yeah, I am sorry to just show up like this but I needed to get away from …”  _The memory of my dead husband,_ she added silently. She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud though. “… Everything,” she added softly.   
  
“I am so sorry about everything, Sam,” Noah Sr. said. “Alexis and I wanted to come but –“   
  
“I know, I know,” Sam said and clearly remembered asking Alexis and Noah to stay away from the funeral because she couldn’t deal with their grief on top of everyone else’s. It may have been cruel of her but she was far from in her right mind.   
  
“Alexis is in the kitchen baking some cookies with the girls,” Noah Sr. said. “Why don’t you go say ‘hi’ to everyone?” he suggested to the little boy, setting him down on his feet.    
  
“Okay!” Noah exclaimed, running inside and disappearing from view.   
  
“Since when does my mother bake?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.    
  
“Since the girls say it’s about time she learned,” he said with a soft laugh.    
  
Noah Sr. opened his arms and Sam stepped into them, resting her head on his shoulder. He was the closest thing she had to a father, and she had been only too happy to name her son after him. He and Alexis had been married for a little over four and a half years and Noah Sr. had immediately reached out to Sam to include her in his family circle. Patrick and his wife Robin had done the same and Sam loved their daughter Emma the way she would if they were biologically related.   
  
“Are you going to be okay, Sam?” Noah asked, smoothing back a long strand of her dark hair.   
  
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Sam said, wiping away tears.    
  
“Don’t hide your feelings, Sam. It takes time to heal,” Noah said wisely. “I know when Mattie died … I grieved for years. I expect you’ll handle this better than I ever did though because you’re a much stronger person than I ever was.”   
  
Sam smiled. “I doubt that, but it’s nice to hear …”   
  
Sam heard excited girls’ voices coming and smiled as her sisters came flying out the door and wrapped their arms around her waist. “Sam, Sam, we missed you!” Molly cried excitedly. She was almost nine years old and looked tall and mature for her age.    
  
“I missed you too -- my little sisters who aren’t so little anymore,” Sam said with a soft laugh, hugging them back.    
  
“Yep we’re not so little anymore,” Molly agreed. “Kristina just got a training bra!” she laughed.   
  
Kristina turned bright red. “You little brat! I can’t believe you told everyone that!”   
  
Sam grinned. “Hey, it’s no big deal to me, but Molly, you know better than to be telling secrets.” Sam found her words ironic seeing as how she had been keeping much more important secrets for years now.    
  
Molly looked down at her stocking-clad feet. “Oops,” she said, not sounding the least bit sincere.    
  
Suddenly Alexis appeared in the doorway. “Don’t you people know you are letting in all the cold air?” She asked. She was carrying Sam’s little boy and nuzzling his chin with her own. “Junior is going to catch a cold or worse.”   
  
“That is such an old wives’ tale, Alexis,” Noah Sr. said, pecking his wife on the lips.   
  
“Ew they did it again!” Molly cried in disgust. “They kissed.”   
  
Everyone laughed and Alexis beckoned them inside. Once they were all ensconced in the warm house, Alexis put down Noah Jr. and moved over to Sam, pulling into a tight embrace. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she whispered into Sam’s hair.   
  
Sam nodded. “I’ll be okay. It will just take time. That’s what everyone keeps telling me.” She sniffed to hold back a sob and Alexis turned to wave everyone out of the room.    
  
Once they were all gone, she pulled Sam over to the sofa and wrapped a blanket around her daughter’s slender shoulders. “You look frozen,” she explained. “Do you want me to turn up the heat?”   
  
Sam shook her head. “No, its okay.”    
  
Alexis sat beside Sam, taking her hands and rubbing them until some heat returned to Sam’s fingertips. Alexis knew exactly what she needed.   
  
“I am so glad you’re here,” Alexis said. “I see a big rental truck outside. Does that mean you’re moving back to Port Charles?” she asked, undisguised hope rich in her voice.   
  
Sam nodded. “For awhile, at least.”   
  
“Well you’re welcome to stay here at the lake house as long as you want. We have the room for you and Noah Jr.”   
  
“I don’t want to get in your way,” Sam said. “You weren’t expecting this.”   
  
“We don’t expect a lot of things but they happen and we adjust,” Alexis said sagely. Sam knew she was talking about more than just living space, but the death of Lucky as well.   
  
“Well I definitely didn’t expect to be here. I didn’t expect to be a widow right now. I was counting on another thirty or forty years with my best friend at my side,” Sam said, tears dripping down her face. “I definitely wasn’t expecting to come back here but this is what Lucky wanted for Noah and me. He wanted Noah to know his biological father –“ Sam broke off, realizing what she had just said.   
  
Alexis stared at her wide-eyed. “What did you just say, Sam?”   
  
“Mom, it’s nothing.”   
  
“You just said Noah’s ‘biological father’. As far as I know, Lucky was that man … Or am I wrong?”    
  
Sam sighed softly. “Lucky raised Noah as his own but he’s not Noah’s biological father.”    
  
Alexis groaned. Sam could see her turning the possibilities over in her mind. “Please don’t tell me my sweet Noah is really that louse Jason Morgan’s?”   
  
Sam avoided Alexis’s eyes. “And if he was …”   
  
“I wouldn’t love Noah a bit less, but I’d still wonder at your sanity in getting pregnant with that … man’s child.” Alexis leaned over and embraced Sam again. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Sam. I will be there for you – help you in any way I can – but this could get ugly.”   
  
“I know,” Sam said. “I know."   
  
XoXoXo   
  
Maxie Jones was admiring her 14-karat diamond engagement ring at Kelly’s Diner while she waited for her fiancée to show up for lunch when her cell phone started buzzing to the tune of “If You Want My Body”. She opened her purse and extracted her cell, putting it to her ear.   
  
“Hello?”   
  
“Maxie, its Sam.”   
  
“Ohmigod, Sam McCall. I mean, Sam Spencer!”   
  
“Yeah, that’s me.”   
  
“I can’t believe you’re calling!” Maxie exclaimed.   
  
“Is this a bad time?” Sam asked.   
  
“Nope. It’s a great time; I’m just surprised to hear from you. You haven’t exactly been the easiest person to get a hold of.”   
  
“Sorry. Life has been crazy ….”   
  
“Don’t I know it?” Maxie said. Then she sobered a bit. “I heard about Lucky and I’m really sorry.”   
  
She heard Sam sniffle. “Me too … But I really just need to focus on other things right now or I’ll go even crazier …”   
  
“I understand.”   
  
“So I was wondering if maybe we could meet later this week. I miss you. I’d like to see you; it’s been too long.”   
  
“Are you in town now, Sam? In Port Charles?”   
  
“Yes. I am here for at least awhile and I could stand to see a friendly face.”   
  
“Oh mine is definitely the friendliest – and the prettiest,” Maxie exclaimed. “Besides yours, of course.”   
  
Sam chuckled softly. “Uh huh, of course.”   
  
“I can’t wait to see you and fill you in on all of the stuff that has been going on with me! Plus I want to see that adorable son of yours that you stopped sending me pictures of about oh – two years ago.”   
  
“Sorry again. I got busy with life.”   
  
“Sure, sure,” Maxie said. “Anyway, when should we meet, Sam?”   
  
They made arrangements to meet the day after Christmas and then Maxie reluctantly put down the phone. She heard a noise behind her and turned. Jason Morgan was standing in front of her.   
  
“Can I help you?” she asked sarcastically.   
  
He shrugged. “I heard a little of your conversation …”   
  
“You mean, you were eavesdropping? You sure have a lot of nerve, Stone Cold!” she snapped.   
  
He sighed. “Just tell me – was that Sam McCall you were talking to on the phone just now? Is she back in town?”   
  
“Actually it's Sam Spencer,” Maxie said, watching him. He looked shaken for a moment and then quickly turned and walked away without saying anything.   
  
“You’re welcome for the information, Jason!” she hollered after him, but he was already gone. 


End file.
